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Chirac bids to be le comeback kid

EVEN before it has begun, France’s presidential election contest has taken on a farcical air as Jacques Chirac, the incumbent, makes plans to stay in the race despite political defeats and a mysterious medical condition.

It had been assumed that France’s rejection of the proposed European constitution this year had virtually destroyed Chirac’s dreams of re-election. It amounted to a humiliating vote against his leadership.

But neither this nor what was referred to as the president’s “little vascular accident” — a condition for which he spent a week in hospital — has dampened his enthusiasm for power, according to government sources who claim he is plotting his comeback.

Bernadette Chirac, the first lady, is said to be particularly insistent that her husband, who felt “fine” after being released from hospital on Friday, secure his party’s blessing to take on a socialist contender in the election in May 2007.